Little Tough Guy

Having been a fan of the Bowery Boys/East Side Kids, I eagerly grabbed this movie, expecting to see the wildly madcap misadventures of Mugs, Glimpy and the rest of the East Side Kids, boys whose misadventures stemmed from their being naughty, though not altogether bad, along with the local cops who tended to feel that the East Side Kids were a far bigger threat and who belonged behind bars. As a rule, the East Side Kids, in a race against time, with the law hot on their trails usually wound up making good and coming out the heroes in the end, by using their street smarts and their smart alack attitude. This was the general formula of the movies starring the East Side Kids. The East Side Kids were truly the kings of the B-grade movies.

With this in mind, I was at first disappointed in this movie. It was a grim and somewhat tragic story of a gang of boys stuck on the wrong side of the tracks and who, through circumstances beyond their control, wound up on the wrong side of the law, turning to crime.

Through it all, some of the character traits that would shine bright in their later movies, was apparent. There were some comic moments in this movie, though too few and far between in this movie.

In spite of my disappointment, this movie is one movie that I can watch over and over again.

A point of interest to the technical-minded viewer who loves to look for detail, the record changer in Cyril's house is a Capehart, one of the high end record changers at that time. And in the 1930s, this model cost more than the price of a new car!

The weakest and least known of all the film series spawned from the "Dead End" Kids were those made by Universal. These Universal films which were cranked out between 1938 and 1943, overlapped the concurrent "Dead End" Kids at Warner Bros (1938-1939), and The East Side Kids films (1940-1945) at Monogram. LITTLE TOUGH GUY was the first of Universals contribution to the series. This first entry is only passable. The first half is poorly directed and many elements are hard to take. The second half, when the kids go on a wild crime spree comes off better. Of interest to fans of the series is seeing Huntz Hall, in a departure from playing his usual dumbbell role, plays a real tough guy in this one. This was also David Gorceys first appearance in the series. His more famous brother Leo was not in this one (nor any of the subsequent Universal entries). Hally Chester also makes him debut as a gang member in this one (he previously had a bit part in CRIME SCHOOL.)

The first entry for the Dead End Kids & Little Tough Guys series for Universal from 1938. Made between "Crime School" & "Angels With Dirty Faces". This series also overlapped the popular East Side Kids series for Monogram. Their last entry for Universal was "Keep 'Em Slugging" in 1943 with Bobby Jordan replacing Billy Halop as the gang leader. "Little Tough Guy" stands out in seeing Huntz Hall as a real tough guy & gang leader instead of playing his usual dumbbell clown role. I just wish he would've done it more often because he was good at it & it also worked better with a more serious Huntz Hall matched against Billy Halop but in the subsequent entries he's back to being goofy again & it doesn't work as well with Halop as it does with Leo Gorcey. Although he was a bit serious & dramatic in the 3 serials.

I have the entire Universal Little Tough Guys DVD box set from "Little Tough Guys In Society" (1938) & "Call A Messenger" (1939) to "Mob Town" (1941). I've watched all these films & it's probably their rarest & least known series but it's still good & entertaining. Some of the films like "Give Us Wings" (1941) feature all the original Dead End Kids, all except Leo Gorcey. Too bad Leo Gorcey wasn't in any of these films because it might've worked better than it did & maybe the films would've been more memorable. In the original Dead End Kids I always enjoyed the confrontations between Leo Gorcey & Billy Halop. Too bad they couldn't work together anymore after Warner Bros dropped them.

Little Tough Guy has Billy Halop and most of the rest of the Dead End Kids operating as a gang pulling off a number of petty crimes and led by a snotty young rich kid played by Jackie Searl. Halop doesn't start out that way though.

He and the rest of his family get a real lousy break when his father Edward Pawley out of work and desperate goes to work as a scab and gets involved in a labor riot. Pawley gets blamed for the death of another worker and gets the death penalty with first degree murder.

That was part of the story I couldn't buy. Granted the family didn't have a good defense lawyer, but the circumstances in no way indicate first degree murder. Everything happens then as they're forced to move to a bad neighborhood and Halop falls in with some tough slum kids who become Searl's gang.

Not the best of films Little Tough Guy doesn't compare with what the Dead End Kids did over at Warner Brothers. This feature for Universal just doesn't have the same production values. Still it's better than what was to come at Monogram.

Marjorie Main plays Halop's mother and she's miles from the hard working Ma Kettle. Here she's a slum version of Peg Bundy.

Huntz Hall was a revelation. This will be one of the few times you see Hall play it serious and he was effective.

Not a bad urban drama though Warner Brothers did them better.

I have seen this movie and found it to be somewhat entertaining. It is one of only two movies in which the former Broadway star and (later) radio star (Big Town), Edward Pawley, plays the good guy! He plays the role of "Jim Boylan", father of "Johnny Boylan" (Billy Halop). Mr. Pawley usually played villainous roles in his more than 50 movies during a 10-year stint in Hollywood. One other exception was in the movie "Hoosier Schoolboy" in which he played the role of Captain Carter (Mickey Rooney's father)who was also a war hero with a drinking problem. Edward Pawley was probably best known in movies for his role as Danny Leggett (aka, Public Enemy Number One) in the James Cagney vehicle, "G-MEN." He also had feature roles in movies such as "The Oklahoma Kid" in which he played Humphrey Bogart's partner (Ace Doolin), "Romance of the Limberlost" in which he played Jean Parker's suitor (Jed Corson), Thirteen Women in which he played "Burns", Myrna Loy's accomplice in crime, "Romance On The Range" in which he played Roy Rogers' ranch boss and covert outlaw (Jerome Banning), et cetera, et cetera.